$60 million Raceland plant to convert sugar cane refuse into products

Tuesday

Sep 2, 2014 at 2:53 PMSep 3, 2014 at 8:00 AM

An international pulp, paper and packaging manufacturer has selected Raceland to invest $60 million in building a plant geared to the conversion sugar cane waste into marketable chemicals, sweeteners and biofuels.

Xerxes WilsonStaff Writer

An international pulp, paper and packaging manufacturer will build a $60 million plant in Raceland to convert sugar-cane waste into marketable chemicals, sweeteners and biofuels.The project is a demonstration to test the effectiveness of the company's technology for extracting chemical building blocks from bagasse, said Otavio Pontes, managing director for Virdia, a California based biotech company. In June, the company was purchased by Stora Enso, one of the top five producers of pulp and paper worldwide. If the techniques are proven economical, the technology will be expanded industrially.“This is, for us, a startup, a new avenue that we believe will grow. We are used to much larger projects in the pulp business,” Pontes said.He said he's sure the project will be the “seed of a completely new business” for the company, which posted sales nearing $14 billion last year.Gov. Bobby Jindal and state and local officials joined the company to announce the deal Tuesday at Lafourche Parish government's offices in Mathews.Bagasse is the pungent leftovers after the marketable sugar has been ground from the cane. Though the years, there have been alternative uses for the refuse, but the practice for converting bagasse to chemicals and biofuels on an industrially economical scale has not been perfected, experts say. Locals have seen and almost certainly smelled the multistory brown mounds of bagasse piled beside Raceland Raw Sugar on La. 182. The mill is powered primarily by bagasse but produces some 80,000 tons extra each year, which will be the new plant's feedstock.Industrial applications have come and gone, and each year, about 1 million tons of excess bagasse is produced by mills and has no value, said Jim Simon, manager of the American Sugar Cane League in Thibodaux.Some is dumped and buried, some incinerated and some used in more creative applications.Raceland Raw Sugar has stored its excess bagasse on the mill's grounds since the particle-board company that last sold the byproduct to went out of business in 2005, Duplantis said.“That's what is so exciting about this: If they can make it work in Raceland, who is to say they can't make it work using bagasse from plants around the state?” said Dan Duplantis Jr., vice president and general manager of Raceland Raw Sugar Corp.The plant, next to Raceland Raw Sugar off La. 182, will create about 80 permanent jobs and a projected 469 indirect jobs, state officials estimated. The state awarded Virdia a performance-based, $1 million grant to offset infrastructure costs.The company expects production to begin in 2017.“This is tremendous news for Lafourche Parish. If this does work out, this would be a boom for Louisiana,” said Benjamin Legendre, professor and director of the LSU AgCenter Audubon Sugar Institute.The agency has federal grants to develop biofuels from components in sugar cane, switchgrass and other plants.Scientists are still chasing the “big breakthrough” for the economical conversion of bagasse and similar plant materials into biofuel on industrial scales, Legendre said. Simon said several uses of local bagasse have come and gone, including the manufacturing ceiling tiles and animal food. Valentine Paper used bagasse to produce paper for years. Currently, Lafourche Sugars in Thibodaux is using its excess bagasse to contribute electricity to the grid, Lengendre said.“When it is successful, I think you are going to see that this is the beginning of many great things to come,” Gov. Bobby Jindal, told a group of government and business leaders gathered for the announcement in Mathews. “I think people are going to look back to this day and say this was a big step forward for Louisiana, for our sugar-cane farmers for our entire industry.” For now, Parish President Charlotte Randolph is glad to see more development in central Lafourche.“It is also happening in an area most people don't realize is growing,” she said. “Fourchon is the gem most people don't get to see. But this corridor along (La.) 182 is developing into a major industrial area because of the four-lane highway and the railroad.”

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